Abstract
Housing systems in East Asian countries represent a distinct model from those in western countries. Recent socioeconomic and demographic changes, however, are leading to new housing approaches being adopted. Housing East Asia is a timely and useful contribution to the burgeoning literature on the urban conditions in the Global South. The volume highlights the central role housing systems play in both economic growth and welfare provision. Meanwhile, it collects nine empirical country studies and explores how the housing systems are adapting to emerging challenges. The word ‘housing’ precisely reflects the effort to accommodate these changes. In this way, it goes beyond area studies and sheds light on the dynamics of housing systems as well as their interaction with broader transformations.
The book is organised into 10 chapters. The first chapter sets the scene for the rest of the book whereas each of the other nine chapters focuses on empirical studies of one of nine Eastern Asian countries. In the first chapter, Doling and Ronald identify a distinctive East Asian housing model, which is characterised by an approach of ‘state-coordinated housing commodification’ (p. 17). Within the last two decades, emerging challenges, including economic crises, an ageing demographic, the erosion of the family model and political democratisation, have given rise to a policy shift combining economic and social considerations. However, as the authors insightfully note, such transformations are pragmatically facilitated by state intervention and thus remain largely path-dependent.
China’s housing policy since economic reform, as presented in Chapter 2 by Wang and Shao, is a good example of such a mixture of free market liberalism and strong state intervention. Although the role of the state remains strong, the country witnessed radical housing privatisation and commodification in the 1990s. But growing inequality has recently inspired a policy shift towards the provision of social housing. In this sense, the reintegration of housing with social security should be regarded as a response to the problems of the earlier neoliberal approach.
Chapter 3, by Yip, delineates Hong Kong more as a case where the housing system is an integral part of a productive welfare regime. Among other measures, continuous intensive promotion of homeownership as a pillar of welfare provision is most apparent. For Yip, the recent retreat of the state from the homeownership sector is temporary and more of a pragmatic strategy in response to the market slump in the late 1990s. This housing approach, however, faces great challenges to meet the future housing demands of both the young and the elderly.
In the past few decades, the housing system of Indonesia has seen tremendous changes and experienced extensive liberalisation. In Chapter 4, Tuna and Darmoyono divide the evolution into three phases, from the state-dominated housing provision to the involvement of private sector and then to the more recent decentralisation system. The issues of accommodating the ever-growing urban population and meeting the needs of the rising middle class have become the focus of current housing policies. As the government has sought to tackle the long-lasting problem of finance by obtaining funding from the private sector, the latter now plays an important role even in public housing provision.
Japan, which is the longest-standing developed country in East Asia, has been at the forefront of facing challenges in homeownership-oriented housing systems. In Chapter 5, Hirayama highlights the economic decline, the casualisation of the labour market, an ageing population and falling fertility and a decrease in the number of middle class families, combined with the government’s withdrawal from the provision of public housing to low-income groups as the key factors leading to the erosion of the housing safety net. The author concludes that Japan’s current conditions raise concerns about the sustainability of the homeownership-oriented housing approach.
The provision of housing in Malaysia is similar to that of many other countries in terms of its productivist nature. As the authors of Chapter 6 point out, while there have always been plans for housing production for different income groups, housing is provided largely through the market and is used as a means to overcome economic difficulties. In the meantime, what makes the Malaysian case distinct is the involvement of a political and electoral dimension to eliminate ethnic differences through housing development.
Chapter 7 by James Lee examines the Singapore housing system from a very useful institutional perspective. It asks how both social and economic objectives have been achieved simultaneously through a public housing system. The key to Singapore’s success is the creation of two circuits of capital by building housing as an asset. With the unique Central Provident Fund (CPF) -cum-Housing Development Board (HDB) system, not only is housing integrated with social security, but the housing sector also becomes a pillar of the wider economic growth. In conclusion, the author highlights the significance of the right institutional arrangements to ensure fair distribution.
Hyunjeong Lee reviews South Korea’s four phases of evolution in housing policy in Chapter 8. Throughout history, the state housing system has favoured a homeownership approach, although public housing schemes were launched to improve housing affordability. Since the global financial crisis, however, South Korean society has been witnessing a series of structural changes in economic development, social values and family arrangements. The longstanding benefits of homeownership have been largely eclipsed. In response to the housing affordability problem, the author argues for a more welfare-oriented housing approach.
Housing commodification and market institutions are also a feature of the housing system in Taiwan, which is depicted by Chen and Bih in Chapter 9 as having a ‘laissez-faire’ and later a ‘pro-market’ approach. This resulted in speculation and serious affordability crises in 2005. Since the 1990s, the market solution has made little progress in tackling the problems brought about by significant changes, such as deindustrialisation, growing social inequality, the delay of family formation and the drop in the fertility rate. Recently, the social rental housing movement has begun to influence the policy-making process, which, as the authors expect, might lead to policy reforms in the future.
In the last chapter, Sheng presents a similar trajectory of transformations in the housing systems in Thailand as in many other countries in the region. He particularly focuses on the increasing social inequality created by Thailand’s market-oriented housing policy. As middle-income earners have easier access to quality housing from the private sector, the urban poor have to live in informal housing. After the Asian financial crisis, programs were launched to improve the housing conditions of the low-income groups. It is the middle-income households, however, that have reaped the benefits.
Overall, this book presents a very powerful collection of case studies of housing systems in East Asia and is rich in conceptual ideas and empirical details. From Harvey (1985) to more recently with Gotham (2009), it has been well established in western countries that property development is an integral part of the more general dynamics of capitalism. One of the greatest strengths of Housing East Asia, therefore, is that it goes beyond the housing sector and identifies its critical role in responding to socioeconomic and demographic developments, presenting a case in point in the context of East Asia. Accounts of housing policies and institutional arrangements in different countries also provide useful practical insights. Readers who are either scholars or policy-makers in the fields of housing and urban studies would be interested in this book.